From the blog:
There are many encouraging signs of late in the general area of open data. However, one thing that has to be kept in mind with this movement is that open data is only part of transparency – it is necessary but not sufficient. If the data is not understandable by the intended audience (and open data suggests a very broad audience) then there is no transparency. The information and knowledge locked in the data will be hiding in plain sight.
This thought suggests that any open data movement has to be combined with a ‘plain English’ (or ‘plain
‘) programme and an investment in data literacy. In addition, to take the whole movement to its obvious conclusion, there should be some well defined success criteria. What is the answer to the question: what happens to whom when citizens experience open data?
For a similar take, see my: Baltimore – Semi-Transparent or Semi-Opaque?
What surprises me is that in response to the Cablegate scandal, that the State Department did not simply start dumping all their daily output to the web. In all its inconsistent formats, vocabularies, etc.
The ensuing flood of data would effectively hide any secrets they may have far more effectively than any security protocol.
I can imagine the news conference now: “You found a document that said what? Imagine that!”
With no attribution it could be anyone from the janitor writing a novel on their lunch break to Hillary finally saying good-bye to Bill.
And that would allow the reservation of “top-secret” for things like launch codes, where is the red button, stuff like that.